Last week Paul Rahe brought me considerable calm regarding Russia & Crimea, pointing out that whatever Mad Vlad's aspirations are, he simply doesn't have the resources to pull off his plans, and is in fact depleting his own economy. America isn't Russia's enemy, Rahe argues -- we're not even rivals, since our only interest in Russia at this point is as a trading partner. Russia does have an enemy, though:

Russia is suffering a demographic implosion. It will be difficult for
it to hold what it has. It is, moreover, well nigh impossible to get
Russians to move to Siberia. It is not a pleasant place in which to
live. The majority of those who live there today are not Russian. Many
of them are Chinese who have journeyed north in search of well-paid
work; and China, which is just across the border from Siberia, is an
economic juggernaut increasingly desperate for resources of the very
sort that are found in abundance in Siberia.
Vladimir Putin should
think hard about the precedent he is setting in the Crimea. The day may
come when China does to Russia in Siberia what he is trying to do right
now to the Ukraine in the Crimea. Putin's government piously states
that its only concern is to protect the majority Russian population in
the Crimea from the Tatars and the Ukrainians there. China, in time,
will say the like about the Chinese in Siberia. And when that day comes,
he will have alienated everyone of any significance who might otherwise
have rallied to Russia's defense.

That rings true to me, as does this:

Our aim for the past seven decades has been to reorder the world in
such a fashion as to make war counter-productive. The name of the game
is commerce. The weapon we deploy is simple and powerful. Those who
agree to leave their neighbors alone and to allow freedom of commerce
can profit from a a world-wide economic system that will enrich
everyone. Those who buck that system and opt for imperial ventures will
be contained, weakened, and defeated.
This is a lesson that France and Germany have taken to heart. But Vladimir Putin is simply too dumb to notice.

Conclusion: this is not good for Ukraine and Crimea right now, but in the long run Putin's only hurting Russia.

Deep breath, everyone calm down.

That was last week. This morning Rahe has a follow-up that's genuinely alarming. Maybe too much so, maybe it's just alarmist. But read not only the piece but the intelligent comments. The question is what China will learn from Russia's Crimea gambit --and Obama's manifest weakness. Rahe speculates that Taiwan might be in danger. His interlocutors think that's too much, but Japan's South Sea interests might be in real danger. RTWT.